Weekly Drabble #223: Below (Patreon)

A Happy All Hallow's Eve to you all! We've got another sinister, spine-chilling tale for you all and with the prompts of 'skeletons' from Knightress, 'surprise party' from Sam C and 'silence' from Xpholia, it's definitely got some eerieness to it.

Hope you enjoy and you all have a safe and fun Halloween!

~

Below:

Even without the blood, the trail would have been easy to follow. It had snowed overnight, covering the Earth in a soft white carpet that left no doubt at all as to which way the vampire had come. Its wide, beast-like feet had left heavy treads in the fluffy layering, each footprint edged with red, frozen droplets leaving a speckled trail of their own alongside the creature’s prints. It led deep into the forest, to a rock formation at the base of a cliff and a deep, dark cavern within. It was quiet here, with no trace of other animals. Not a bird calling in the cool winter morning, not a squirrel or chipmunk scurrying to their larders or any other trace of life at all.

The air coming from the cave was warm and humid. It stunk of rot. Worse than rot; there was a malignancy to the odour, a sickness fouler than mere decay. The hunter secured a kerchief over his nose and mouth, affixing his mask to the lower half of his face. It was metal, painted a matte brown so as not to give away betraying glints of light and styled in the shape a wolf’s mouth with bared teeth. His particular order were known as the Silver Wolves, so named for their founder’s pets, a pair of silver-coated timber wolves whose mother had been slain by the same vampire that had killed the woman’s child.

It was said she’d nursed the pups as if they were her own flesh and blood. They’d grown into towering beasts and exquisite trackers that never left their mistress’s side. After she fell in battle, they vanished into the wilderness for a month, only returning with the remains of the vampire that had killed her clenched in their teeth. For the rest of their lives, at least one of them was always at her grave. When they passed on, they were buried next to their mistress with the same honours due to any hunter, now and forever at her side.

There was even a legend some told about grave robbers seeking the remains of a famed vampire hunter to desecrate in a profane ritual. The men had decided on the wolves’ mistress. They were found the next day, a shovel still stuck in the ground above the hunter’s grave, with only a single shovelful of dirt dug. Rather, parts of them were found, strewn over the grave site as if they’d been torn to pieces by wild animals. It was even said that the wolves’ bronze statues had blood upon their mouths, still drying in the morning sun.

Strike like wolves, was the order’s credo. With speed, with surety and together the mightiest foe will fall.

The hunter wore brigandine armour, a stiff metal collar around his throat and reinforced banding over his wrists. He carried canisters of silver nitrate around his belt; it was an anti-infection agent, a coagulant and poison to vampires. On his waist he carried an axe, the head marked with silver runes and a sharp blade on the top to let him stab, thrust, slash or hack with it. Within the handle was an additional surprise: a spring-loaded blade that could pop out with with a press of a concealed button. On his left thigh and upon his left breast were small silver daggers. He was prepared as he could be,

He looked over his shoulder to his companion. The cool air bothered her little, and she’d stripped off her large, form-engulfing cloak, thick boots, gloves and wide-brimmed hat, leaving them at the mouth of the cavern. Unlike him, she wore a tight dark outfit that clung to her body and allowed full freedom of movement, thin metal plates strapped to her limbs, with a cuirass across her chest to protect her heart and a collar whose purpose was much like his own: to protect her throat from being torn out or – more likely – to prevent decapitation from a silver-runed blade. She was barefoot and ungloved, her fingers and toes already stretching too long, but not yet curving into the ripping talons of her kind. Her face was uncovered with nothing to keep her teeth from sinking into the flesh of her prey. Her hair, long and silky, was braided and tied back to prevent a foe from grabbing it.

Normally, she didn’t come with him. Vampire hunters operated mostly in daylight, and it would be difficult to explain why his partner was not only a woman, but one wrapped up so thoroughly that not a single beam of sunlight fell directly upon her skin. This hunt was different. A small nearby town had suffered an unspeakable tragedy three nights ago: an entire farm had been slaughtered, from the livestock on down to the family of five. A family that she had known for generations, though they’d never been aware of her, nor had she ever explained what her connection to them was.

The hunter believed that he knew, though he’d not spoken of it. At first, there had been some question as to what had committed such butchery. The victims of vampires were traditionally individual animals or people,marked by slashed throats and opened veins; they craved blood, not flesh, but this massacre was different. Bodies and pieces of bodies were strewn about barns, coops and the farmhouse in sanguine testimony to an orgy of violence.

Many of the townsfolk had feared some beast such as a werewolf, or even a wendigo had been at work, but in the red splashes of death, the hunter had seen the truth. He was young. Not the youngest to hold the position of vampire hunter, but young enough to still be called ‘boy’ by his peers. His instructors had seen something in him, a spark of intuition and it was that that had revealed the lies dressed in gore. A wendigo wouldn’t have left nearly as much meat. Likely none at all, and a werewolf... there wasn’t enough blood and what there was, was smudged – as if something had been lapping it off the floors and walls. A werewolf might have licked up some, but not this much.

Something else had done this, something that had tried to hide its handiwork through slaughter, but its desperate hunger had driven it to betray itself. He again looked at his companion. Some men might have entertained a scintilla of doubt, a small part of them wondering if the vampiress had been responsible, but he did not. It was not in her and even if it was, they had spent that night in each other’s arms,a rather solid alibi.

So whatever had done this had been a vampire, but not his particular vampire. And one that he’d doubted, long before seeing these tracks, was a normal one. It was another Feral, a degenerated creature lost to the blood-curse... but a canny one. Most were mindless killers. This one had tried to hide its feeding. He thought of the other Feral he’d killed four months ago and how it had left a trail for its pursuers. He doubted that this was a similar trick; not only did it think its prey were searching for a different animal altogether, if it had intended a trap, it would have sprung it long before they reached its lair. Vampires were notoriously territorial. Even his companion.

He looked over his shoulder. The sun was still high in the sky, only just beginning its slow descent towards the horizon. The creature would be deep asleep by now, digesting the full belly from its latest kill. The hunter signalled silently to his companion. She took the lead as he struck a match and lit his lantern, both them heading into the cavern towards the stench of death.